Washington: The US today designated an Af-Pak based group linked to the Islamic State as a foreign terrorist organisation, slapping a series of sanctions on the outfit and its leaders who are mainly former members of the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban.
ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K), which announced its formation on January 10, 2015, is based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and is composed primarily of former members of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.
The senior leadership of ISIL-K has pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, the State Department said.
"This pledge was accepted in late January 2015 and since then ISIL-K has carried out suicide bombings, small arms attacks and kidnappings in eastern Afghanistan against civilians and Afghan National Security and Defense Forces, and claimed responsibility for May 2015 attacks on civilians in Karachi, Pakistan," it said.
The consequences of the foreign terrorist organisation designation include a prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to this organisation.
